The present invention relates to a device for feeding a converting unit with a web substrate. The invention also relates to a station for feeding a converting unit with a web substrate, the converting unit converting the substrate when stopped. Such a station comprises a feeding device according to the present invention. Such an unit for converting the substrate is a diecutting platen press or else a printing platen. The invention finally relates to a packaging production machine incorporating a feeding station with a web substrate and a subsequent unit for converting the substrate.
A packaging production machine is designed for the manufacture of boxes, which will be suitable for forming packages, by folding and gluing. In a packaging production machine, production begins with an initial continuous substrate, that is to say a virgin web, for example of cardboard, that is unwound continuously, printed by one or more printing units, optionally embossed, and then cut in a diecutting platen press.
The blanks or boxes obtained are then shingled before being stacked in rows in order to form stacks in a delivery and palletizing station for the purpose of storing them or conveying them out of the production machine.
A diecutting platen press or a printing platen is a converting unit that requires a momentary stopping of the progression of the substrate during the conversion. Because of the continuous feeding upstream, an accumulation of the substrate occurs in the form of an upstream loop.
A feeding station is used first of all for placing the printing in longitudinal and lateral register with the cutting. The other function of the feeding station is to create cyclically and to control this loop at all times which becomes longer during the stop due to the working of the press and which becomes shorter when the feeding of the press resumes for the purpose of the subsequent conversion. The feeding station transforms the continuous progression of the substrate into an intermittent progression, at each work cycle of the converting unit, while maintaining a constant tension of the substrate at the loop control.